[Closed] Keeping Faces

[Ezre Vks]

three twelve willow avenue

Early Evening on the 16th of Vortas, 2719

Snow is a hat worn by mountains,
the tallest of which do not remove the hat in summer.
Sunlight settles like a shawl
upon the hills and dewy berry fields.
The sun is not a wag or hail-fellow-well-met.
It does not loaf or shirk.
It keeps its face funeral-ready,
as you should.

Chris Forhan
from A Child's Guide to Etiquette

Ezre had wanted to prove himself, but perhaps he had not settled clearly enough on what he had hoped to embody the living proof of—preparedness? strength? devotion? patience? He was quickly reminded that he could not inhabit fully any of those various existences, quickly reminded that while his galdor-shaped vessel was willing, he had still not walked the path set before him long enough to be everything that he hoped he would become. Like the stoic silhouette of Vroh Guar, the Hoxian had weathered his introduction to the Kuleda household, and like the cold crush of snow on the boughs of scraggly trees that grew in the altitudes high above Hox's rocky coast, he had bent beneath the weight of it all.

But he had not broken.

Lilanee had needed his support and he had given what his hands could hold. She had needed his calm and he had poured it at her feet. She had needed an advocate with an outside perspective and he couldn't have been more of an outsider than anyone else in all of Anaxas, to be honest: the Hexxos Guide a Circle-worshipping, supernaturally-aware creature so far from the Vitanist, irreligious, practically alien Hessean culture that he still felt the sting of Kuleda-vumash's disapproving glare just a day and a half later.

Somehow, they'd managed a stay. Somehow, despite his shortcomings, the Hoxian had convinced those involved to allow one more attempt at proof. A few more days. A magical intervention which the ninth form Clairvoyant student assured them with all the rhakor-bolstered confidence would be the (only/last, depending on who you asked) attempt to contact Kuleda-vumein, lost and presumed dead in the misty wilds of Western Anaxas

Gods, if he could just not fail in the proving—

Ezre had snuck away early without apology. He needed the breathing room even if it was difficult to slip away from warm breath and warmer bodies, using the pretense of contacting the Everine and gathering supplies as an excuse to go alone, to spend a few precious houses without the constant stream of words that would have otherwise provided a level of comfort but currently felt like a tide washing him away from the shore he wished to stay standing on.

Vienda was an utterly unfamiliar landscape, but the Hexxos Guide welcomed the opportunity to find a state of non-thinking in the urban wilderness that was so unlike Frecks and even more distant from rural, isolated Kzecka. He welcomed the opportunity to mentally unravel all alone in a crowd that would not notice the tattooed Hoxian beyond the ink beneath his skin and the hints of bright saffron linen barely visible beneath the thick dark wool of his warm, hooded coat. He did not care who stared because he was still no one here in Anaxas, just a stranger among the strange.

Ezre could have taken a taxi or a rickshaw. He could have hailed a moa-drawn carriage to travel faster against the mid-Vortas chill, but he wanted the cold to seep into his bones with a homesick longing for comfort that only one of his own kin would understand properly. He walked. He walked to Rookwren. He walked to the church where Everus Perpetuus had passed away and Evera Sibylla had taken his place, and he found a quietude in the Alioe-focused place of worship that he knew he needed. None of the Everine were at all familiar with Hessean burial practices, and while he was aware that no one dared speak of the other Kingdom's near-heathen views, the Hexxos Guide was also quite aware that these particular Everine didn't know what to do with his kind, either.

Tea and prayer—universal religious prescriptions for soothing all hurts as far as Ezre was concerned—kept him enjoying the veiled company of Evera Sibylla for nearly an entire house, noting with no small amount of amusement that where the Anaxi servants of Alioe and the rest of the Circle hid their faces behind a veil, the Hoxian simply did the same without fabric in the way. Arrangements were made for assistance and then Ezre found himself adrift again in the Uptown streets, warmed on the inside and yet not necessarily in possession of any more clarity than when he'd first left the Kuleda household.

He meandered markets in the chilled afternoon, passing shops full of all sorts of things while he searched for scryerworks and grimstores to pick up a couple of last-minute supplies, discovering once his hands were already full a tiny herbalist tucked between a bookstore and a clothier, the scents of which reminded him so much of home that he bought far too much incense and lingered far too long in useless conversation about sage and lavender that he had no idea what time it was once he was back out on the streets again.

It was as he stood digging for his pocket watch, feeling the cloud of his own breath float against his delicate cheeks, that he realized he'd forgotten the house number of Lilanee's family home. Everything else that had jostled for priority and position in his too-busy mind and the most important thing he needed to get back again had totally slipped through his inked fingers!

Three Twelve Willow Avenue, however, was etched into the folds of his grey matter.

He sighed, tucking away the silver timepiece and curling his hand around the collection of seerstones in the same pocket, aware that he could just reach out to Lilanee whenever he was ready to head back—was he ready?

Dru.

Tom Cooke had promised comfortable chairs.

Ezre's free hand raised and he waved down the young human woman and her panting pair of moas that were poised to pass him there on the street.

"Need a lift, uh, sir?" The girl did her her level best not to stare, not to let her red-cheeked face tilt a bit more so she could take in the Hoxian's tattoos a bit better.

"Zjai— Yes. Three Twelve Willow Avenue, please." Dark eyes darted down the street and he chewed the inside of his cheek, making his decision with the paper-wrapped package of incense pressed against his chest along with the small box of his other purchases. Inhaling deeply, he settled into the chilled seat and nodded, confident in his unsure decision-making in this moment.

The ride through parts of town he'd yet to wander was just long enough for self-doubt to claw beneath his layers of warm clothing, to settle there between his ribs and his heart, and to whisper failures into his ears with the voice of the wind. The Hexxos paid the driver dutifully, nervous about how to tip in Anaxas, let alone in Vienda, and glanced up at the Vauquelin home with its distinctively foreign architecture nestled as it was among similar just-as-unrecognizable homes. The stonework was not stained red like ancient Brunnhold, nor was it carved by Hoxian hand out of volcanic rock. Roofs here weren't thatched like in Xerxes and Kzecka, like in the outlying villages huddled around each other for warmth and nestled in the Spondola peaks. Anaxi kept their shoes on when entering their homes. It was all so very different and he'd done his best over the past few days to pretend he was always capable of taking it in stride.

He hesitated at the door, not wanting to interrupt, not wanting to invade as he had just a few days ago with the very inescapable presence of his innermost self into the not-Incumbent's mind. He didn't want to impose on anyone else, Lilanee's mother making him feel as though his very beliefs, let alone his entire existence, had been one brief, bright imposition on both herself and her daughter, despite having acquiesced to his rather wild proposition to attempt to contact her husband by Clairvoyant means.

So he sat, quite suddenly, there on the front steps in the no-man's land between the front gate and the front door, staring at carved stone, icy patches of leftover snow, and the brown, dry remnants of summer's green growing finery. He paused to attempt to center his mind, to calm frayed nerves, to sort through names and faces, addresses and numbers, and at least try to remember Lilanee's address and yet still not bothering to reach for the easiest solution nestled into a silvered skull in his pockets.

He just needed a moment—one more moment. Just one more.

[Tom Cooke]

The Vauquelin House • Uptown

Evening on the 16th of Vortas, 2719

T
om was grateful for the dark of the carriage, with its thick, heavy black curtains, its warm panelling.

He’d’ve laughed at it, once, a private carriage carrying him to and from Stainthorpe Hall every day; he had chafed at it, at first. He remembered in the Rose how everyone had stopped to watch the moa-drawn carriages rattle by, headed toward this or that benny mansion in Cantile, seaside villa in the Court or the Fords.

There was no protesting, not anymore. It was just one stroke in the painting, just one line in the ward. An incumbent couldn’t take a cab from the Palace District. He understood why, and he did not chafe.

Today, he’d just been grateful to climb into it and sag into the leather-upholstered seats. He’d been grateful for the evenness of the road, the smoothness of the wheels. He’d been grateful to let his head rest back against the cushions. He’d been grateful to shut out the gold evening light that blazed so bright in the melting snow and set the white stones and pillars to glistening; he’d been grateful to shut his eyes and breathe.

Yesterday had been a wasteland. He had thought he might need two days to recover from it; he still wasn’t sure that going in today had been a good idea. But he’d left the Pendulum House earlier that week green-gilled and hiccuping, dark droplets of blood spattering his evening suit. He’d left the gentlemen at the card table in the lurch, and though he wasn’t sorry for it, he was sorry for the whispers on his heel.

He’d needed yesterday; he’d barely been able to pick up his head off the pillow that morning. No hair on the dog for cognomancy, he’d thought, in too much pain to be wry.

There was still a pain in his head, like somebody was tapping nails into it with a little hammer. One of his eyes itched faintly; he’d flinched to see it in the mirror that morning, the lake of messy red blood vessels blooming underneath one pale iris. Cardinal had gasped to see him that morning, hanging his coat outside the office.

He’d worked late today, for all he’d missed on the five, and he’d applied himself with a vigor he thought had surprised even Shrikeweed. It was the least he could do; it was all he could do.

He’d nearly fallen asleep when the carriage jostled his aching hip. He stirred, brushing the drapes out of the way. Not there yet; not quite.

He peered out into the intersection at Willow and Hyacinth. The sun was hiding behind the rooftops, and the houses cast long shadows over the street. The carriage lurched into motion again, moa’s claws scratching rhythmically at the stones. He watched the houses slide by, stone walls piled with day-old snow, the dark twisting branches of trees lined in white.

He thought longingly of his study. He didn’t know when he’d become the sort of man whose favorite choice of the day was whether to curl up by the fire with Tsadi pezre Awameh or something translated from Deftung. Or to get out his chalks, he thought, letting the curtain slide back and his eyelids with it – to get out his chalks and meditate.

Ezre and the lass must’ve been in Vienda by now, he knew. He’d tried not to think of it; it’d seemed so distant and strange, what had happened in the Pendulum. It was hard to think of that bright, expressive voice, that outpour of word and feeling, as Ezre. It was somebody else he was expecting. He didn’t know what he was expecting; he’d begun to think he might’ve dreamt the whole thing.

He knew he shouldn’t’ve shut his eyes, because it felt like seconds when the carriage rattled to a halt. It took him a moment to unfold his stiff legs. He felt sticky with sleep, and the dull smells of Stainthorpe – paper and ink and wax, and old carpeting – clung to him, mingling with a politician’s cocktail of cologne and hair oil and cigar smoke.

The cold was like a wall, but the sight of the Vauquelin house rising up over the wrought-iron gate – the study window he could see even from here – set him at ease. They were through the gate and up the drive before he knew it, and then he was slurring thanks to Donovan as the big human helped him down from the carriage.

He left the moa rustling their feathers and chirruping behind him, waving off the offer of an escort. Squinting through the evening light, he thought he could see a dark shape settled on the front steps.

He crunched through the curls of fallen leaves, shading his eyes with a hand. The light glinted off dark hair, shaved on the sides and pulled into a familiar bun; it caught a hint of deep saffron fabric underneath a heavy dark coat. As he came closer, he saw a familiar face, with a bold dark line running from his bottom lip to the shadows of his chin.

“Ezre-xî,” he called, his deep voice raspy with the cold. He pulled his coat closer about him as he passed into the shadow of the house.

It was like a dream to see him here. Nestled among stone and neat-trimmed grass and bare Anaxi trees, the tall mahogany doors looming up behind him, with their elaborate brass knockers. He didn’t look so good himself, Tom thought. Like a fish out of water.

Tom had to stop to catch his breath; he laid a hand on the stone post at the end of the railing, leaning heavily on it.

Why didn't you knock? he half wanted to ask. He was sharply conscious of the great Uptown house behind, and of himself, in his Vienda best. For a moment, he felt horribly awkward; now, in the flesh, he felt like there were a dozen layers of somebody else between him and the Hexx.

The wind picked up, rustling the branches of the trees; he caught a whiff of something familiar. “Is that patchouli I smell?” he grunted, when he’d found his breath again. “And lavender,” he added, with something like an uncertain smile.

Hesitantly, he reached out through the clairvoyant mona, feeling the brush of belike; he caprised Ezre gently.

[Ezre Vks]

three twelve willow avenue

Early Evening on the 16th of Vortas, 2719

The Hoxian settled on the front steps when he could have stood up and knocked on the door, folding his legs like the wings of some fleeting mountain butterfly and setting his packages to one side. The sun was setting behind the neighborhood, scintillating that autumn gold off of windows and polished stone—Anaxas did have beautiful light this time of year compared to his homeland which was already in so much darkness, crawling toward the shortest day of the year in Ophus on the winter solstice.

It was, perhaps, one of this kingdom's few redeeming qualities.

He felt the cold seep upward through the stairs, slowly creeping into lean muscles and gnawing at young joints that still ached as if he'd fallen ill—leftover consequences from his Clairvoyant overstepping that he'd hardly had a moment to rest and recover from. He simply accepted the general malaise that anyone who'd been actually hungover before (Ezre had not) would have described as very similar in all sensations because he had not come to Vienda to care for himself. He'd come to serve. Folding his hands into the voluminous sleeves of both his clothing and his coat, the Hexxos Guide resisted the urge to reach into his pocket and retrieve his half of Lilanee's scrystone.

Not now. Not yet. Surely, if she was worried, she would have reached out already, for he had carefully taught her how. Surely, he was not needed for just a few hours more, still filling his lungs with the fresh air of solitude.

Well.

Selective solitude, anyway. He was here on someone else's property with all the intention of meeting with them in person, even if he'd not yet made the decision to intrude on their home.

What if Tom was busy? What if he wasn't in position to entertain the Hoxian? What if he was a bit unhappy with Ezre's most recent intrusion after all? What if he wasn't even home?

He closed his eyes, face a well-honed deceptively inexpressive veil that hid all the wild confusion that writhed within. He breathed in the cold, letting it fill his high-altitude-raised lungs, letting it tickle through his blood stream. He exhaled the doubt, wordlessly reaching out for the hot flow of patience that moved with such inescapable reliability beneath the rocky surface of existence, wordlessly reaching for that merciful calm that Bash embodied with divine perfection. Another inhale and Ezre moved his whole self through the familiar comforts of the prayers to the Circle he'd learned as some of his first words in Deftung as a very young child on the lips of his parents:

He was thankful for the whisper of summer wind through Vulker's leaves, slowing his pulse and reminding him of his strong roots. He dwelled with gratitude on Roa's gift of life and Naulas' equal and no less valuable gift of death, their eternal companionship one that was supposed to keep the Cycle turning. Vespe in her wisdom perhaps needed to desperately grant him more, and he dwelled far longer in her presence than he did in prayerful conversation with any of the others—

The sounds of a carriage caught his attention, drawing Ezre from his quiet introspection, from his communing with the gods, eyes wide and open, staring past the gate. His surprised gaze caught sight of the ruffled plumes of moa heads, the bent form of a driver, bundled against the cold, and he noticed how the carriage was slowing to a stop right here at the sidewalk in front of the Vauquelin home.

He sat up, exhaling expectantly a hot cloud of his own breath, and as the steam subsided, there Tom Cooke made his way through unswept leaves toward his own front door. Ezre may as well have been a vision, a projected illusion, a trick of the light. Surely, in this moment, worn so thin, even the raen could see through him, but instead of blinking him away, of dispelling that Clairvoyant vision in the wafting of smoke, his voice rang out—his galdor body's voice so different from what the young Guide had really heard just a few fistfuls of houses ago—with the Hoxian's name. With the proper pronoun.

It was not his place to smile—

He should have stood and bowed and admitted his imposition.

He should have not been here at all.

—but, instead, the dark-haired student's shoulders sagged and his breath hitched and he grinned, cheeks too warm and mind too frazzled to really give a chrove's erse about rhakor for one—just one—selfish minute.

He didn't miss the brief flicker of concern, of curiosity, that passed over the well-aged features once Tom was close, once there was a very blossoming, very belike field caprising his own. He drew his airy aura back toward his rediscovered center, back into focus, in polite greeting. Perhaps it mingled in more than just formality, familiarity and a need for some comfortable anchor of magical sensation, for that hint of warmth he knew lay hidden beneath the borrowed body and its raen's personal gruff exterior. Eyes widened for a moment, delicate brows arching in a question he did not yet ask, and just as quickly as the bright, welcoming expression had taken over his entire flushed face, it faded with the sun behind the last of the impressive Uptown homes, snuffed out by his own self-consciousness.

Ezre stood, ignoring the protest of his knees after walking so much of the day on purpose, after refusing to pay homage to his own exhausted body, "It is good to see you again, To—mmm—Incumbent Vauquelin."

He did not know his permissions here, but he was aware of how public this all was, here in some politician's front garden like a fool, "I might have gotten carried away in some quaint and humble herbalist shop, zjai, but my excuse is that it smelled like home and I could not help myself from purchasing far more of just about everything than I actually needed. I might have also splurged on too much tea when I do not need that for any spell so much as just need it to survive this trip. Perhaps you will want something from my bounty to help lighten my burden? Also, if you are busy, please, in all honesty, tell me to leave, but, uh, before you do that, I may require some assistance remembering the address of where I am staying."

Teeth sank into his tattooed lower lip and the Hexxos' composure faltered for the second time, this time in chagrin. With a rustle of thick, warm wool, he turned to gather his packages back toward his chest, hugging them all tightly as he tensed in anticipation of some form of well-deserved rejection,

"I forgot the street number of the Kuleda household, but I do not think I can forget yours even if I tried."

But he hadn't even knocked.

He was not ashamed to feel so exposed in Tom's company, to reveal that his confidence was subjective and that his current footing on the path he'd willingly chosen felt so unsteady at best,

"Things are still blurry, retention difficult, after our—well, after our conversation—and I came here. Because you said I could."

[Tom Cooke]

The Vauquelin House • Uptown

Evening on the 16th of Vortas, 2719

T
here was a mant grin spread across Ezre’s face. Without even thinking, Tom grinned back.

He wasn’t sure why Ezre was grinning. It wasn’t the first time Tom’d ever seen it, but you didn’t see it very often; the Hexx was careful of his rhakor, for all he was barely nineteen. Still, he’d lit up like phosphor at the sound of his name.

Xî, he’d said. He was sure he hadn’t pronounced it as well as he’d thought it during their ley channel; it was easy to hear the way a word was pronounced in your head, and harder to get your tongue and teeth to obey your brain. But, he supposed – looking at Ezre sitting on his broad stone steps, tattooed and swaddled in cloth – he suspected Vienda was a little further from home even than Brunnhold.

The realization settled in Tom’s chest with the weight of an ache. So did Ezre’s familiar voice, not too different, after all, from the voice he’d heard in his head just two days ago. So did the well-placed fumble, To – mmmm.

Every joint in him ached, and he could feel the pain in one hip all the way down his leg. The smells of Stainthorpe, of Anatole’s cologne, of the cigars he’d just smoked with Incumbent de Vries clung to him like the ghost of another man.

All of it clung to him; it always took hours to feel like he was shedding the skin he put on every day. It took him hours alone in his study to forget that his face was a mask, pulling his expressions in directions a dead man had shaped. Hours, to forget that the eyes he looked out of were pale instead of dark. And he felt heavy with it today, with every step in this alien shape.

He was so horribly tired, and whatever Ezre had seen in him that’d made for that big smile, he was grateful for it. He thought maybe he wasn’t the only one who was tired.

When his smile faded, there was still a tickle of it around his mouth; he couldn’t quite manage his customary scowl, even through the worry. Nor, when he felt Ezre’s caprise, a little deeper than a polite stranger’s, could he keep the warmth out of his field. “It’s good to see you, too,” he replied.

He returned Ezre’s raised eyebrows. To his surprise, he found he didn’t mind; he felt a swell of something like pride. He pulsed his field subtly, playfully, against the Hexx’s.

The smile faded as Ezre went on. The furrow of his brow got deeper, but he didn’t speak; he stood leaning on the post, lips pressed thin, studying one dark eye and then the other. He glanced down once at the packages huddled to his chest, then back up at his face.

One eyebrow shot up sharply. “You forgot Kuleda’s address?” He grunted, then nodded. From what Ezre’d said, he’d been shuttled into an airship and shot to Vienda before he knew half why.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said after a pause, taking a deep breath and kicking himself into motion. He’d halfway ascended the steps when he turned to look at the galdor, his hand shaking slightly on the stone railing. “I’ll have Rosmilda look her up. What’s her mother’s name, again?”

His breath steamed on the air; he shivered into his coat. He studied Ezre’s face again, his frown deepening. It might have been the light, but the shadows under his eyes looked deeper. Tom couldn’t blame him for looking wan; it must have, he thought, been a difficult few days. He had a feeling Ezre wasn’t just here for the address, and he felt more touched than he could say.

“You’ll come in and sit, won’t you?” he asked, gesturing to the door. “We’ve a few flights of stairs between us and the study, but” – a flicker of a smile; he thought of the stairs up to Ezre’s dormitory – “there’ll be a fire in the hearth. And some privacy.”

The warmth inside was welcome, for all it gave Tom the sniffles. It was Morris who took their coats, staid and careful to avert his gaze. Tom thanked him, waved him off, and led Ezre through the wide foyer, with its warm phosphor lights and its tapestry of the Circle.

Just before the stairs, Margaret bustled in and froze at the sight of the Hoxian. “Miss Wheelwright,” said Tom, pausing. “When you get the chance, would you care to bring tea up to the study for my young friend and I?”

“Of – of course, sir,” stumbled the nattle, her glance flicking from Tom to Ezre and lingering on Ezre. But she curtsied to both, then bustled out.

The house was quiet; Diana had not been home to see her recovering husband in some months. The stairwell was particularly quiet, and when they’d got some of the way up, Tom turned back to Ezre. “I’m not busy, Ezre-xî,” he said finally, more softly. “I told you you were welcome here, and if you want something stronger than tea, you’ve certainly come to the right –”

The joke petered out. He paused on the step to catch his breath. He held onto the banister white-knuckled; he had to shut his eyes and grit his teeth against the sudden wave of light-headedness. He felt as if he might slough off his bones.

When he opened his eyes, he smiled wanly at Ezre. “I would gladly share your incense. There’s a burner upstairs, but it’s been a while since the study’s smelled like lavender. Please – just – give me a moment.” His smile flickered. “Are you all right? You haven’t tried to…”

[Ezre Vks]

three twelve willow avenue

Early Evening on the 16th of Vortas, 2719

Tom's galdor vessel looked tired, leaning there not quite at his own front door as if it was just slightly too far, too much at this moment. Even though he'd grinned back, generously without a hint of knowing just how much any Hoxian would have chastised Ezre for such an expressive greeting, there was a strain to it in the cold that did not go unnoticed. It was his fault—was it not?—that the raen was perhaps more than just a little under the proverbial weather. Oh, but then—

The field that Tom Cooke expressed himself with was sure as the Circle not at all the porven puddle of entropic force that the Hexxoss had first felt in that rundown excuse for a phasmonia outside Brunnhold in Bethas!

—he could have said something—should have, really—but when he considered what to say, nothing felt appropriate, nothing felt like enough. The raen even flaunted the tenuous tangible-but-invisible evidence of peace he'd been seeking between his existence and the mona, between himself and his misplacement in the world with a less than subtle flex of the mostly Clairvoyant particles that had begun to weave their way into the chaos. That had begun to settle.

Admittedly, since before his own birth, Ezre had been used to the caress of a stronger but not dissimilar field, but the sense of accomplishment conveyed in the other man's magical expression was not at all pressed upon someone without the ability to feel it. Tom had once been human, which meant that had the dark-haired student been any other galdor, anyone else without the supernatural knowledge, without the spiritually softened sense of zkratas the Hexxos possessed, he would have been expected to be disgusted and horrified, not humbled and thrilled.

Gods, life was complicated enough.

The Hoxian made some noise of self-deprecation, a huff of consonants against the back of his throat in confirmation that of all the things that had been on his mind, willingly or not, lately, the street name and numbers of Lilanee's childhood home had not managed to seep through the cracks of much larger burdens to find their place within his memory.

"Kuleda-vumein's name? Oh, rocks and pebbles—" Ezre hissed, burying his tattooed face into one overly-fragrant paper-wrapped package to muffle a groan, closing his eyes for a moment in total shame, seeing the Hessean woman's stern look of disapproval, of frustration, of disbelief still burned against the back of his eyelids. He had to sift through all of Lilanee's words—which were an ocean vast and deep with a current swift and strong, always—that had filled the past few days, turning them over one by one, sentence by sentence, until finally, he looked up, meeting Tom's pale, expectant gaze through the steam of the raen's breath while he'd held his own,

"—Alethia Kuleda. Lilanee’s otsur—her father—is Jonathan Emmett. Supposedly, they are married but do not expect me to understand the social etiquette between Anaxas and Hesse involved in that arrangement." The Hexxos Guide, unlike the very woman he spoke of, didn't say was, insisting on the present tense for the man whose funeral he'd been dragged to Vienda to either attend and direct, personally, or put a stop to entirely. He had at least managed a reprise, but that meant now the burden of proof of life fell upon the narrow, tattooed shoulders of a Carrier of the Dead.

The irony was not lost on Ezre.

"You did mention you had nice chairs, Incumbent." He nodded first, the soft-spoken agreement made with an audible undertone of coyness as he followed behind Tom through the carved, wooden doors of his home to feel the wash of warmth in his threshold. The Hoxian immediately began to slip out of his shoes, precariously balancing packages and his weariness, before he searched for somewhere to set the more physical burdens down in the hopes of also shrugging off his coat in the immediate change of temperature.

Someone was there, a servant, reaching for his thick outer layer but careful not to stare and he blinked, offering his coat with quiet politeness. This was how things were done in Anaxas, after all, and it wasn't as though the Kuleda household had not been the same. Tom was gracious enough to wave off the formalities, and Ezre picked back up his packages to follow the galdor through his foyer, dark eyes lingering on the lovely tapestry and the familiar icons of the Circle woven in muted colors and embroidered details.

He glanced toward the stairs, unable to help but arch a delicate brow at the human woman. His usually deadpan expression softened, faltered into a whisp of a smile, aware that he was a strange sight to most, especially in the clothing of his Order and the ink under his skin. He was not a typical Hoxian, even back home, and he'd grown used to being stared at. Again, with all the smoothness the raen had been forced to learn quickly, to adapt to in the body of a galdor politician whether he wanted to or not, Tom made his requests and sent Miss Wheelwright on her proper way.

Ezre sighed, following up the stairs, only to smirk at the words that broke the rhythm of their climb.

Not busy. It was like a shared joke, really. He even chuckled at it, resisting the urge to roll his dark eyes in a breach of rhakor, amusement laced with the seriousness of his response, everything filled with more meaningful openness as Tom continued to address the Hexxos with the comforts of Deftung, "Tch, I would, but—I am fasting until—until I cast. I should refrain from chan until then, also, if only because the chan I will be brewing will be quite, uh, strong." The young Guide's emphasis was perhaps meant to reveal an understatement, but he flashed a genuine smile as Tom was forced to pause there on the stairs, shifting the weight of his parcels to one hip and curling inked fingers gently around the other man's elbow, offering his unsolicited support and adding quietly, "Under different circumstances, I would most certainly not refuse your hospitality."

With a light tug, he moved to help them both up the rest of the stairs, "I really did buy too much of everything. I suppose it was out of need for familiar succor." His jaw clenched at the question and he looked away for a moment, dark eyes flitting about the hall, taking in a Viendan home with all the curiosity of the temple child he was,

"Zjai, I am alright, or, at least, I will be. I am only slightly overwhelmed, but that is my fault for letting my feelings for one person steer the course of my optimism instead of preparing myself properly for the task at hand. I knew to expect disapproval and resistance, but that expectation does not always lessen the sting. This balancing act is new—" It was Ezre's way of admitting how much Lilanee both surprised and distracted him, all at once, all the time, but this time especially. The color that rose to his cheeks was not just from the change in temperature from the frigid outside to the warm interior, "—caring for someone while also keeping on the face of my duties."

The Hoxian shrugged almost dismissively with his admissions, apparently entirely unable to bother with any real filter in Tom's company, not after sharing so much unspoken reality already,

"I have not had a moment to think clearly, let alone reach back out to you. I have managed to gain myself an extra day before the funeral goes forward, with or without my participation, so I have scrambled to make plans." He tilted his head toward his packages, aware that he had no idea where the raen's study was and allowing himself to simply be physical support instead of take any lead in direction, "I could scry—you are correct, but I think a bit of breathing room was necessary."

[Tom Cooke]

The Vauquelin House • Uptown

Evening on the 16th of Vortas, 2719

H
e’d imagined the tapestry’d catch Ezre’s eye. It was a shame, he thought, the parlor wasn’t on the way to the stairs; he thought Ezre might’ve appreciated – more than anybody – the lovely irony of the statue of Naulas above the mantle. He’d gotten it before the watch, before he’d even met Ezre again. It’d stood there through all that had happened in Hamis and Roalis, gleaming black-glazed antlers casting a tangled pattern of shadows upward onto the wall where Constance’s portrait had once hung.

Now, halfway up the quiet stairwell, he found himself wondering what Ezre made of all of it. It’d surprised him at first to see Ezre take his shoes off at the door; and he felt faintly ashamed at the bustling staff, at Margaret’s sir, but there was no other way of doing it Uptown.

He thought Ezre understood, but it still felt strange, to be seen like this. In the ley channel, he’d felt exposed; now, he felt overdressed.

He said nothing as Ezre took his elbow gently; he was saving his breath. He nodded and let the Hexx share some of his weight. It might’ve embarrassed him, once, this. He was becoming used to it, he suspected; just one of the ways time was fitting him to his shape.

He stood still a few seconds, still holding the banister tightly, his breath evening out.

Then Ezre urged him on up, and they tackled the next stair, and the next, and all the rest together. There was no sound but their muffled footfalls on the thick carpet and Ezre’s soft voice.

Strong chan, Tom thought wistfully, looking up and ahead. A smile flickered across his face. He remembered the last time he’d had it; more memories nagged at him – memories, and wants, and needs – and he let them scatter again into the dark. He had left them in orange peels, tucked them in the pages of ada’na Tsadi and ada’xa Ihouma and many others. They had their places; if they hadn’t, they might’ve consumed him.

And this was chan for a different purpose. “Fasting, eh?” he murmured, quirking an eyebrow sidelong. He caught Ezre’s smile, but he didn’t quite smile back.

He was silent, listening to the Hexx go on. Balancing act. He thought he knew something of it, walking the line between your qalqa and your fami, such as it was; he thought he knew something of the stumbling and the plummeting, too.

At the top of the stairs, he guided Ezre down a short hall, in the direction of another heavy mahogany door. A couple of extra locks had been affixed to it, new and out of place against the old dark wood. There were more, Tom knew, on the inside, some you couldn’t see from either side unless you knew what to look for. They were unlocked today; they were not always.

He paused before the door, looking over at Ezre, meeting his eye again. An extra day, he mouthed, eyebrow raising even higher. An extra day. How many days were there? Then: “Correct? About –”

Tom blinked; his eyes widened. “You misunderstood me. Hells, I didn’t expect – not after cognomancy.” He let out a soft, incredulous laugh. “I thought, seeing you sitting on the stairs – I worried you’d already tried to contact Emmett. And that…”

He glanced away, down. He cleared his throat, then opened the door, patting the Hexx’s arm before disentangling his own from it.

The study had been made ready. The light that came in through the window was growing watery with the gloaming, pink melting into grey. Against it, phosphor lamps shed warm gold light, two flanking the door and one sitting on the desk; the lampshade was a swirl of brass vines, and their shadows twisted across the desk. In one shadowed corner, two chairs flanked a low table, and a fire crackled in the hearth.

Tom noticed this, and he tried not to forget. He knew that these things could vanish easily – the lighting of the lamps, the stoking of the fire – could seem like the stroke of the Circle’s brush and not the work of human hands.

Most nights, he stood on the threshold and shut his eyes and pictured Margaret, sometimes with a different face, moving from one light to the next, bending down to the grate; some nights, he was too tired to think of it, and that frightened him more than anything.

But he shut the door behind himself and the Hexx, and he gestured to the chairs by the fire with a wan smile. “Nice enough chairs, Ezre-xî?” The smile didn’t last. “Make yourself at home. This place is private enough; Ms. Wheelwright will be up with tea shortly, but you don’t have to worry about what you call me here. The walls’re thick, though I’d be careful around Morris.”

Tom ambled over to the desk, finding the incense burner in a drawer. Familiar succor, he thought. He found the decanter of water, too, and two glasses, and brought them over to the chairs by the fire. When he’d put them on the table, he sat, sinking gratefully into the leather upholstery.

He took a deep breath, opened his eyes, and looked at Ezre. His face was full of worried lines. “You said you bought yourself a day,” he said, a little sharply. “A day – in addition to? How soon?”

[Ezre Vks]

three twelve willow avenue

Early Evening on the 16th of Vortas, 2719

The Hexxos Guide didn't miss the many points of Naulas, dark eyes drawn to the male ungulate's likeness that had become the god of death's avatar in tales of the living over the millennia. He would have made some comment, some remark about precognition being a myth circulated among Clairvoyants like the fountain of youth supposedly lost in the depths of Vezzea's corpse of a Kingdom. Instead, he almost smiled again, caught like a child with his hand in the temple's offering box, fishing for a few sujen pieces for candy at the market. Not that he'd ever been that child—dru—well, maybe.

The stairs were a welcome escape from eyes that looked at but did not see him, from surprise that might have been warranted given the bright folds of his clothing and the dark lines inked into tawny skin, given the fresh shave he'd given the sides of his skull and the variety of scents drifting from his various packages. He was so very used to stairs, which was perhaps an odd realization to most, but for the Kzecka-born Hoxian, climbing up and down stairs was more than just a necessity: it was meditative, it was exercise, it was a fact of life.

Tom, on the other hand, had been quite stretched thin by Ezre's casting, worn by the strain of selfishly-imposed cognomancy that he'd not objected to at the time, despite having every right to, and still paid the price for it all even today. Could the raen have actually refused his role as witness? He realized he didn’t even know just how many personal boundaries he’d trampled on that night. The dark-haired Guide still felt off, sure, but it was easy to dismiss the way he felt on every emotional up and down that he'd been forced to calmly wade his way through over the past day and a half instead.

The raen leaned into his grasp and willingly allowed himself to be supported up the stairs one step at a time and he was glad for it, finding the physical closeness a generous closure to the magical connection they'd shared with so little definition of boundaries. Perhaps Ezre should have been more sorry for both intrusions, and yet even now, Tom did not refuse him,

"Zjai, clearing the mind sometimes also requires clearing the body." The unspoken truth was he'd also just not wanted to endure more long awkward moments at the dining table this morning as he had last night and the night before that. Maybe it was an easy excuse that had spiritual and magical benefits he wasn't about to deny himself of as well.

Glancing about the hall without bothering to hide his curiosity, noticing wallpaper and wainscoting, different doors and frames of spectographs and paintings, he looked back to Tom when they stopped, blinking at the raen as he fumbled toward meeting the Hoxian somewhere in the middle of their conversation that might have otherwise drifted past like two airships in the clouds,

"Oh."

He breathed the sound, the word misunderstanding causing him to flinch as if he'd felt the syllables instead of merely heard them, "Dru—no. I have not made my attempt to search for him. Not yet. You—you said you would be willing to offer assistance, so I have done my best to stall. Kuleda-vumein is quite keen on seeking her form of ceremonial closure and does not trust that we will find any sign of life with my magical proposal. I did my best for Lilanee, but her mother is quite the staunch heath—Hessean."

Ezre grimaced, almost mischievous but very subdued, barely catching himself as he followed Tom into his study, letting his sentence trail into a slow inhale. The younger galdor had been born in a city crammed full of temples and shrines, sacred places and hallowed libraries. The Hexxos Guide knew a sanctuary when he saw one, dark eyes taking in the way the fading sun caressed the carved contours of furniture and the way phosphor lights cast their warm glow like the watch fires kept lit in all the holy places that were such a vital part of his home. Displaced from the life he knew, a life Ezre had long guessed was put to an end unexpectedly too soon, Tom Cooke had sought to make for himself some semblance of necessary respite in which to feel his own form of spiritual rest.

He felt the heat of the hearth even from the threshold, especially after sitting outside for so long. There was just enough tuax, enough concept of home, in this carefully-kept Anaxi study that the Hoxian's shoulders sagged and tension trickled over the ridges and valleys of his spine, down to his bare feet, released back into the ground with each subsequent breath.

Making his way toward the chairs by the hearth at the invitation, he set his all but one of his packages on the low table, hovering there while he opened the last, carefully peering into brown paper as if he needed to come to an important decision about its contents. All the various scents assaulted him, vying for prominence in his sinuses that still felt slightly angry about his Clairvoyant experiment—they weren't going to be any less angry in a few days' time if he had his way of things, either.

The raen and the curiously different sensation of his field appeared at the edges of his physical senses, setting down an incense burner and glasses and water. He heard his permissions and warnings, giving a nod before he reached with inked fingers into the bag and chose a little bag of large granules, thick with the nostril-cloying scents of rich patchouli, vetiver, and sandalwood, just as the other man had noted. There were plenty of other choices he could have made, but if there was a curious attachment to certain scents, well, Ezre wasn't about to deny his friend the pleasure. He paused to arrange the granules skillfully, setting the rest of the package down and noting the matches near the hearth.

Ezre watched Tom sink into the chair opposite before he reached for them, dark eyes studying his face while those pale blue eyes were closed, watching the way the fire illuminated pale skin and pale curls, admittedly just as curious about Tom’s previous singular life as he’d always been about his mother’s plural histories. He knew she’d not always been Hoxian either, and the various possibilities captured his imagination in silence. Unashamed to still be staring once those eyes opened again, looking away to let inked fingers grasp the tall tin and remove a match from within. Striking it, he spoke from behind the little flame before cupping his hand, carefully igniting the incense,

"An extra day, maybe two. Allow me to continue to be the most rude of Hoxians: are you free tomorrow? If not, I can only avoid formal meals for so long—even if my body can hold out much longer, my manners cannot." The hint of a smile from behind that tattooed back of his hand, and then the young Guide leaned away from the wafting smoke to huff out the match. He paused to fill both glasses of water as would have been expected of himself around any elder, taking his to the opposite chair he then poured himself into with his own form of tired, liquid grace.

Ezre fell quiet for several moments, breathing everything in, breathing it all out.

"I believe I have come up with a decent plan, Tom, and there is a place for you in it." The Hoxian melted into the leather, finally speaking. He took a sip of water while his free hand adjusted the bright saffron and deep golden layers of his clothing to allow for some circulation, already warm, "I will need someone to interpret. Lilanee is unfamiliar with Clairvoyant conversation, though her task is also specific. Do you feel familiar enough to read whatever I manage to provide?"

The flex of his field from across the table was not quite a challenge so much as recognition, as an invitation.

[Tom Cooke]

The Vauquelin House • Uptown

Evening on the 16th of Vortas, 2719

H
e heard the match hiss to life. All he could see against the backs of his eyelids were vague dances of light. But he could smell it, a whiff of something faintly burnt, and then – a smile twitched across his face, unbidden. Patchouli. Sandalwood, he thought, and – lemongrass? No; vetiver.

The cocktail of incense wafted through the air. Tom could already feel himself unwinding, sinking into the soft chair. If it’d been a woodstove instead of a grate, he might’ve pretended he was in Quarter Fords.

“You sure know how to treat a dead kov,” he murmured, then snorted, then groaned at his own amusement.

When he opened his eyes, Ezre was looking at him across the billow of smoke. He couldn’t’ve said what Ezre saw, that made him stare so; there was no point thinking of it, and he was too tired, anyway.

He was too tired even to protest when Ezre poured the water. For all he’d meant to do it himself, he was glad he didn’t have to get up from his chair again, and the soft gurgle of it into the glasses already seemed to ease his headache. He took a glass from the Hexx gratefully, and raised it to his lips right away.

He hadn’t realized how dry his throat was. Or how bad the headache had been, through most of the day. As Ezre spoke, he lowered the glass to his lap, pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead.

He took a deep breath in the dark and listened; then, looking at Ezre, he kept listening. There was a faint, thoughtful frown on his face. His eyes widened slightly at a day, maybe two, but he didn’t look particularly surprised at anything else.

He let a pause stretch between them after the Hexx had finished. He tried to collect his thoughts, breathing in the sweet-earthy scent of the patchouli. The fire crackled, and the floor clock ticked, an easy rhythm to center himself on.

He nodded then, slowly. “Yes. I can make time – tomorrow – is the seventh,” he murmured, shutting his eyes again momentarily. “I’ll be leaving my chief of staff with a pile of work and a few angry Mugrobi diplomats. May the best Ever find you, Shrikeweed.”

He raised his glass in a one-sided toast, his hand shaky, the water jumping up to the lip and nearly sloshing over. He took a long draught, then cleared his scratchy throat.

To hell with it. There was still some Gioran from yesterday, wasn’t there? Unless he was supposed to be fasting, too. He realized he wasn’t sure; he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be doing, at all.

He hoped to hell he wouldn’t have to fast. Cleansing the body cleansed the mind, maybe, but there wasn’t a chance he was getting through this without needing a drink.

“When will you be doing it?” His voice was sharper, now, and full of Anatole’s intonation; it was the voice of a man who could speak of his chief of staff, with not a trace of his earlier Tek. “And where?”

Pushing through the exhaustion, he sat up in his seat, leaning to set the glass of water down on the table. He met Ezre’s eye narrowly as he did so; the water didn’t spill. He knew himself to be wan and pinched – he could feel it, the hollow-eyed tiredness – but it was a look as sharp as his voice he gave the Hexx.

His fingertips lingered on the lip of the glass; they did not shake. When he felt Ezre’s field flex out against his, belike mona mingling, he returned the flex.

It wasn’t easy. There was no way to describe it, this; he could’ve found a hundred metaphors, and none were sufficient. It wasn’t easy, but it was natural, like letting the weight of a thrown fist carry you through – like finding your diaphragm before you could breathe through it – he knew where he felt the mona in him, the same place that’d overwhelmed him when he’d first found himself in this body. It was no longer overwhelming, but it was terribly strange.

Life was strange. Everything was strange. He frowned deeper at Ezre, wondering. “What does Lilanee make of this? She knows that she will be working with me?”

Speaking of strange. He’d seen Ezre’s reservations, by now; he knew the Hexx wasn’t as confident in Kuleda’s acclimation to all this – vodundun – as he seemed.

“And you said it was to be cognomancy,” he said. “How will I be – interpreting?”

[Ezre Vks]

three twelve willow avenue

Early Evening on the 16th of Vortas, 2719

It wasn't a suppressed chuckle that escaped tattooed lips so much as a genuine giggle, an edge of a full-on laugh, and Ezre watched the thick smoke ripple from his breathy sound of equal amusement at Tom's comment about being dead,

"One could say it is my calling, zjai." The young Guide teased almost demurely, though it was simply thinly veiled sarcasm delivered in such an even tone.

The raen didn't balk at the pressing timeline so quietly presented, and with all his typical understated grace, the Hoxian was grateful. Alethia Kuleda had been—was still—would continue to be—a force of nature, figuratively and literally, and the balance Ezre had to keep between his personal involvement and his professional abilities was tenuous and uncomfortable. The creak of leather was almost more audible than Tom's agreement, the sound of his galdor voice was so much more official than the inner voice the divinipotent student now knew so well.

The young Guide sighed in relief far louder than he probably should have, further thawing into the chair with his now near-empty glass of water precariously balanced on the arm of it, held lightly in place by delicate, inked fingers, "It is not my intention to pull you from your international duties, considering how the passing of the Symvoulio into Mugrobi hands looms near. You are generous in your choices, all things considered. I do not want to be a distraction."

That was definitely a Hoxian teenager talking, speaking his gratitude with careful words while at the same time revealing his inexperience and his emotional exhaustion as it leaked out from somewhere beneath the stalwart comfort of his otherwise well-honed rhakor. He watched the raen across from him shift in his chair and raise his glass in some mockery of a good-willed toast through dark eyelashes, half a smirk tugging at his tattooed lip. Ezre didn't move so much as attempt to congeal into less of a liquid state, half a day into fasting and too aware of the sensation of cool water against the heat of his insides,

"If you are truly free, then tomorrow." He hesitated, still weighing the merits of familiarity versus the burden of resistance he'd met in Lilanee's mother's entire being, "The Kuleda household is my preferred location, given how full it is of Emmett-vumash's personal effects, though specifically I am most interested in the large guest bathroom and the impressive enameled tub it contains. The tile should take a prodigium well and the tub is sufficiently-sized for my small-framed self to float in."

Ezre paused in the giving of details almost coyly, attention following the older galdor as he sat up, as the raen's pale gaze settled on his own much darker hues. Tom dredged up his enthusiasm from somewhere inside a tired, aching body, and the Hexxos Guide felt compelled to do the same, stirring in the chair with a slow, steady inhale at the wildly inspiring press of the scandalously dead once-human's field.

"By this—you mean you? Tch."

He held Tom's attention almost sternly, the gentle probing of his question made softer by a hint of emotion that stained his airy aura, drops of pale, warm hues that were far brighter than the Hoxian usually chose to express outside the confines of his own inner self, "Lilanee is much more concerned with proving the burden of her heart than she is about the curious state of your existence. The only way to understand your fears, on all accounts, is to at least attempt to face them—"

Scarred palms on his knees, Ezre's inked fingers curled into the brightly-dyed linen, aware that he wove both the search for Lilanee's father and the young woman's feelings about raen into the same answer in layers of meaning like the layers of his clothes,

"—whether she likes what she sees when it is over is not something I have the power to predict. Though, her otsur aside, I believe spending time with you as I have would be nothing but beneficial."

He smiled, brief and genuine, reaching to set his cup on the table and letting his own fingers linger, dropping his eyes to the liquid left in it.

"I do not know for sure if cognomancy is the best medium, given how exhausting it is, but it was my plan to be—to be like the current and you the bulb. I would be the conduit, attempting to reach the witness, and you would see what I see. Someone has to travel the distance, and that burden falls on me. I just do not think I can stretch all that way and process what I find at the same time, which is why I need you to cast in chorus. I may be able to use steam or smoke or even the water, if you are more comfortable interpreting outside of the mind's eye, but only because I have been inspired by a recent Mugrobi guest lecturer. Here—"

Ezre slid forward, reaching for one of the other packages and opening it in his lap. There were several old books inside, and he slid one onto the table between them, thumbing through pages slowly, revealing a few diagrams of various shared methods of Clairvoyant casting, though none of them were entirely what he had in mind,

"—Lilanee may be able to create a much thicker steam or smoke with her Physical conversation, one which would allow clearer communication." Pressed for time, it was woefully obvious that the Hexxos Guide was drawing on both his educational foundations as well as reaching into his own self for ideas, willingly adapting his plan while in the air in order to adjust to the shifting of the wind,

"I am trying not to grasp at straws, but I think most of my idea is feasible."

[Tom Cooke]

The Vauquelin House • Uptown

Evening on the 16th of Vortas, 2719

E
ven now, Ezre wore his rhakor. Through his neat, matter-of-fact levity, through his lighting of the incense, through the pouring of the water. Watching him, Tom thought he did everything a bit like he was going through the motions of a ritual; he took his shoes off at the door, he climbed to the third floor with meditative persistence, he offered incense and drink to the dead.

And he walked his request back, respectfully enough, if not as graceful as he usually might’ve. If you are truly free, he said.

Are you calling me a liar, Ezre-xi? he half wanted to ask, studying the Hexx’s face. Maybe he’d spent too much time around Mugrobi, these past few months. But it was more that something was leaking through the cracks, something that wasn’t a bright, unexpected grin or a boyish smirk. It was something he’d never seen in Ezre, not even on the long staggering trek back from the phasmonia in Bethas.

It wasn’t just weariness. Or if it was, it wasn’t a weariness of the body. Tom thought how the Hexx’s voice had come fizzling into his head at the card table the day before yesterday, without warning or hesitation. Today – how many times had Ezre apologized? How many times’d he offered to leave?

He was acting like a man who expected a door to slam in his face any second. Tom couldn’t help the twist in his gut. He thought: is it this? (Your duties, Ezre had said. You are generous. He had called him Incumbent, but he hadn’t yet called him Tom.)

He looked askance, at the fire. He wasn’t sure what to think, but he didn’t want to look at Ezre’s eyes on him. There was so much wondering rattling round in his head. He felt – off balance. His head still ached.

There wasn’t time to think more about it, thankfully. His glance snapped back to the Hexx’s face at the tub is sufficiently-sized.

He’d opened his mouth to talk back, to ask just what in the flooding hell Ezre was going to do floating in a washtub, but the Hexx had already whisked onto his other question. His brow was still furrowed, his lips still set thin. But some of the tension in his face broke.

He couldn’t quite meet Ezre’s smile. His eyes softened – nothing but beneficial – but it was a sad sort of softening. Some wisp of blue-shift floated through his field. It was tinged dark, bitter-tasting as a breath of smoke; all the clairvoyant mona whispered uncertainty. Pain.

And then they evened out, and Tom sat listening to the rest of what the Hexx had to say. There: a spark of interest. He watched Ezre open another of the packages in his lap, crackling paper nestled in rich-dyed wool. They were books, this time, and he opened one on the table, between the glasses of water.

Tom bent closer, almost eagerly, reaching into his waistcoat for his glasses. Ezre’s inked fingers were flipping through annotated diagrams of prodigia. The pages came into focus through the lenses, but he struggled to focus on them; his bloodshot eye tickled, and even with the light from the hearth, the pages seemed thick with shadows.

“I think I understand,” he said, glancing up over the wireframe rim. “You want to block out all your senses, so you can concentrate. You don’t know where your recipient is, and it’s a long way to – to Western Anaxas,” he stumbled, blinking. He let out a soft curse under his breath, looking away. He’d forgotten.

He had to gather his thoughts before he continued. He took his glass and settled back in his chair, sucking at a tooth.

Transcribing cognomancy. Sensory deprivation – oes, now he thought about it, he’d read about as much. He thought of a diagram in the grimoire Ava had found for him, outlining the construction of some sort of – he wasn’t sure; it’d looked like a vat. He hadn’t lingered long on the page, because it’d sent laoso chills down his spine. He’d dreamt of it, being trapped in one. He had never much liked water.

He was staring at the glowing tip of the incense stick. He took a deep breath in, then out, and tried to focus on the steady rhythm of the floor clock. He imagined a ward with four clauses, written on his memory; he imagined holding the chalk steady in his hand as he drew the plot.

One thing at a time, he thought.

“I trust you,” he said.

Proving the burden of her heart, Ezre’d said. “I will pray to Roa that you find Jonathan Emmett in the fog,” he said, sitting up again.

He had never spoken of it aloud; the word pray felt strange on his tongue, and so did the goddess’ name. But he meant it, and he looked Ezre in the eye, and he didn’t look away.

“I know you’re a Guide of the Hexxos, and I know you’ve shared the weight of others’ grief before.” He paused. “But it will be me, interpreting and relaying what you see,” he went on, very softly, “and when you do not find him, it will be me who tells Lilanee that her father is dead.”

Is this what you want? Is this what she wants? He couldn’t ask. There was no anger in his face, though his brow was furrowed. He pulsed his field gently against Ezre’s.